COLLECTIONS OF ART CAST IRON KUSA IN THE MUSEUMS OF THE URALS

The paper examines the decorative and applied arts cultural heritage of the Urals - Kusa cast iron art, which existed in the 1860s-2004. The art's stylistic features and the range were defined in its high period in pre-revolution time. The fact that Kusa plant presented fine art products at major national and international science and art exh i-bitions promoted the recognition of Kusa cast iron art. This study is aimed at identifying art products in Ural museum collections, presenting Kusa cast iron art as a unique artis-tic phenomenon, and demonstrating the variety of styles, themes, stylistic and plastic so-lutions of Kusa cast iron art. Ural museum collections still hold extensive collections of Kusa cast iron, demonstrating unique first art pieces of the pre-revolutionary period, as well as of the Soviet period and modern time. Six Ural museums with the largest and most significant collections of Kusa cast iron artwork are as follows (in the author's opinion): Museum and Local Lore Center, Municipal Public Institution of Culture (31 pieces), Zlatoust City Museum of Local Lore, Municipal Public Institution of Culture (134 pieces); Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts, Institution of Culture (165 piec-es); State Historical Museum of the South Urals, Regional State Public Institution of Culture (108 pieces); Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts, Municipal Autonomous In-stitution of Culture (84 pieces), Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore (54 pieces The oldest collection (by the date of establishment and issue) of cast iron art is show-cased in the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts, Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Lo-cal Lore. The collection Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts is attributed and published in a catalog. Ural museum collections feature unique and rare exhibits, reflecting the di-versity of themes, plastic and artistic solutions, skills and craftsmanship of sculptors and Kusa craftsmen